SouthCoast hopes for return to normalcy in blizzard's wake

Residents found it difficult at times to regain a sense of normalcy as they emerged from the weekend's forced confinement at the hands of an intense blizzard.

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By MATT CAMARA and STEVE DeCOSTA

southcoasttoday.com

By MATT CAMARA and STEVE DeCOSTA

Posted Feb. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Feb 11, 2013 at 5:46 AM

By MATT CAMARA and STEVE DeCOSTA

Posted Feb. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Feb 11, 2013 at 5:46 AM

» Social News

With a foot of snow on the ground and school cancellations cropping up throughout SouthCoast, residents found it difficult at times to regain a sense of normalcy as they emerged from the weekend's forced confinement at the hands of an intense blizzard.

But that did not stop them from trying.

Cars clogged main roads in Dartmouth, Fairhaven and elsewhere Sunday as people took to the streets out of neccessity or cabin fever to find warmth, gasoline or supplies to last through what could be extended power outages in several towns.

Chunks of Route 6 in Dartmouth were still dark just before noon Sunday with seemingly no rhyme or reason for who had power or who didn't. The first half of the Route 140-to-Slocum Road stretch remained powerless with businesses closed and no traffic lights at the intersection.

There were also no police officers directing traffic at the busy site Sunday morning, although Town Administrator David Cressman said later in the day that an officer had been sent to the intersection.

By evening, Tucker and Chase roads — all heavily traveled connectors in Dartmouth — were still dark.

Cressman said that plowing would continue into tomorrow on side streets but that he had seen no reports of impassable roads as of Sunday evening.

New Bedford saw almost all power restored by Sunday night, with NStar reporting that 7 percent of its customers in the city lacked power as of 8 p.m.

Mild temperatures helped to melt snow away, but created a few hazards too.

Snow and ice were dropping from utility wires above, clunking the roofs of passing cars.

And folks digging out around their homes needed a heads-up, too.

Large sheets of snow — some probably six by six feet — were sliding off roofs in the area of Cottage and Maple streets in New Bedford's West End. Except for a last-minute cracking sound, the mini-avalanches gave no warning that they were about to occur.

Throughout the day residents in the hardest hit Mattapoisett, Marion, Wareham and Rochester plodded along without power, with many people warming up in their cars on side streets and clearing away snow as daylight persisted.

Once they left home, though there were few places to go. A few stores were running on generator power, but they were the rare exceptions.

Not surprisingly, a couple of liquor stores along Route 6 were open, and the parking lots were full.

Back in New Bedford, isolated pockets of power outages persisted into the evening and parts of the far North End remained snowed in late in the day, but officials said that would change by today.

The far North End was slammed with snow and residents in the Sassaquin area had difficulty shoveling their way out even on Sunday long after the snows had stopped.

"For a city, it's a very rural area," Ward 1 City Councilor Jim Oliveira said, adding that people heading out on Sunday clogged the roads that plow trucks were trying to clear at times.

Work crews planned to keep plowing until 10 p.m., Oliveira said.

"People seem to be in good spirits, they can see light at the end of the tunnel," he said. "It's getting better."